Mt Everest history
North face of Everest from the Rongbuk Monastery
Recommended books & maps about Everest Recommended books & maps on Nepal Mount Everest at 8,848m is the highest mountain in the world with its summit ridge marking the border between Nepal and China. The mountain was given its English name by Sir Andrew Waugh who chose it after Sir George Everest, the Surveyor-General of India from 1830 to 1843. Summary of Everest history 1841: A surveying party led by Sir George Everest, the Surveyor General of India, records the location of the mountain for the first time. 1921: The first British expedition explores the access over the Rongbuk glacier. 1924: On the third British expedition George Mallory and Andrew Irvine do not return from a summit attempt. It is not known if they reached the summit although an eyewitness claims seeing them near the summit. 1938: British mountaineering explorer Bill Tilman leads an expedition via the north west ridge reaching over 8,200 m without supplementary oxygen. 1952: A Swiss expedition, including Sherpa Tenzing Norgay get to within 200 vertical metres short of the summit. 1953: Everest was first climbed at 11:30 am on May 29 by the New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay from Nepal. 1960: A Chinese team makes the first summit via the North Ridge. 1963: Americans Tom Hornbein and Willi Unsoeld make the first ascent of the West Ridge. 1975: Junko Tabei of Japan is the first woman to summit Everest. British South West face expedition led by Chris Bonington. Doug Scott, Dougal Haston, Peter Boardman, and Sirdar Pertemba reached the Summit although BBC cameraman Michael Burke failed to return from a solo summit bid. 1978: Reinhold Messner from Italy and Peter Habeler from Austria made the first ascent without supplementary without supplementary oxygen. 1980: First winter expedition by a team from Poland (Leszek Cichy, Krzysztof Wielicki, Andrzej Czok and Jerzy Kukuczka). Reinhold Messner becomes the first man to make a solo climb Everest without supplementary oxygen. 1988: Stephen Venables becomes the first Briton to climb Everest without supplementary oxygen on a new route up the East Kangshung Face. 1995: Alison Hargreaves becomes the first woman to climb Everest alone and without supplementary oxygen. 1999: Sherpa Babu Chiri Sherpa of Nepal spends 21 hours on the summit! 2001: Marco Siffredi of France made snowboard becomes the first person to ever descend Mt. Everest on a snowboard (on the northside). 2003: Twenty-five year old Nepalese Sherpa, Pemba Dorjie, makes the world's fastest ascent of Everest in 12 hours 45 minutes. Only three days later, Sherpa Lakpa Gelu breaks this record in 10 hours 56 minutes. 2004: Pemba Dorjie breaks his own record, this time ascending the mountain in 8 hours 10 minutes. 2005: Apa Sherpa of Thame summits for the record 15th time. A helicopter lands on the summit of Everest for the first time! The Mountain Company treks around Everest:
Everest base camp and Sherpa villages |